


Deserted

by EmeraldSeaBug



Category: Wander Over Yonder
Genre: 000 words long and I can't tell if it's good or not so judge yourself, Desert, Gen, Heat Stroke, I guess that's a tag that I can tag, I'd say I'm sorry about the title but I'm really not, I'm Sorry, I'm dying inside why do I always do this to characters I like, Near Death Experiences, There's no shipping but I can't control what people see and where so uuuhh yeah, This is almost 8
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-25
Updated: 2017-09-25
Packaged: 2019-01-05 09:50:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12187671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmeraldSeaBug/pseuds/EmeraldSeaBug
Summary: The situation honestly couldn't get more heated as the galaxy's four most hated and most wanted all get stuck together on a blazing hot desert planet. Forced to work together, the allied enemies may discover that the planet was less uninhabited than they might've thought...





	Deserted

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, uhh sorry if this story doesn't float your boat, I'm mostly trying to test the waters so uhh yeah, please tell me if anything looks awry, bye.

“Alright, so here’s the plan.”

Wander nodded in exaggerated contemplative thought as his Zbornak friend paced around their hastily built and somewhat lame campfire.

“We… find some materials…”

Another nod.

“And we… engineer some homebrew Orbal juice, and use it to get off the planet.”

A slower nod this time. He put a hand up to his face to partially cover his mouth, as though seriously considering that. “Alright, good idea, fantastic, creative idea… buuut-”

“You’re right, that’s completely insane! What are we gonna even gonna make it out of? The sand?!” Sylvia kicked some sand up in the air to punctuate her statement, then growled loudly and sat down with a thump.

“Aw, don’t worry, Syl, it ain’t all bad!”

“Yeah, sure, we’re on a desert planet on a freezing cold night, we don’t have any Orbal juice, and your hat’s too much of a selfish piece of fabric to give us anything actually useful!”

“Well… it did give us some water.”

“Great, we can fill a pot with it and boil ourselves alive when the sun comes up.”

Wander giggled and pulled out his banjo, strumming a few cords and kicking back against one of the old logs they’d managed to find. Sylvia stared at him, and sighed after a minute.

“I don’t know how you act so calm when stuff like this happens, I mean, we’re in the middle of nowhere, Wander, do you think someone’s just going to, I don’t know, stroll on by and lend us a hand?”

He shrugged. “We’ve strolled out of worse situations than this, Syl. Don’t worry, if we found this place, I’m sure someone else is going to come across it sooner or later! Besides, bad things happen, but good things always do too. All you have to do, is stop and think.”

A moment of silence stretched for about three minutes, being broken only by the gently plucks of banjo strings and the crackles and pops of the slowly dying campfire. Then, Sylvia sighed again.

“... We might as well try to get some sleep. We’ll probably be walking a lot tomorrow.”

Wander grinned at her. “That sounds like a great idea, Syl.”

Sylvia rolled her eyes, but smirked a little, catching a whiff of her friend’s infectiously happy demeanor. She curled up a reasonable distance away from the fire, and the two friends got ready for a restful (if not somewhat stressful) night.

…

The morning sunrise was bright, beautiful, and serenely quiet… at least, it was, until a shrill cry of frustration let out an echo that could span miles all around.

“HOW ARE YOU EVERYWHERE WE GO?! WITHOUT FAIL! EVERY! SINGLE! TIME!”

Wander found himself awoken not by the sunrise, but by an outraged skeleton man picking him up and shaking him into consciousness. It took not five seconds for him to wake up fully and catch his bearings.

“Well, hiya, Hater! What brings you here this fine morning?”  
He then briefly looked away from the nontraditional alarm clock to his groggy best friend, who was only just beginning to realize what had happened. “See, Sylvia? I told you someone’d find us!”

 

Sylvia would swear she had shot awake faster than she ever had before, standing up and snatching her friend away from the angry villain with her tail. “This Isn’t exactly a rescue party, buddy!”

“Well I’m sure that if we just ask nicely, they’ll be completely willin’ to- mmf mfmf mffphh...”

 

Sylvia deadpanned at her still-chattering friend, who seemed to be undeterred even when a Zbornak tail was wrapped around his mouth. She sighed, and looked back at Hater. He was nearly rattling with fury at this point. “So, what’s a flarf narblin’ boney boy like you doing here? Are you trying to conquer this empty desert? Shooting for the stars, aren’t you?”

“That’s exactly what we’d like to ask you,” said Peepers, walking out from behind Hater, a red blaster in hand. “Er, Well, the first question. And with slightly different wording.”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it. But I asked first, so spill.”

 

Peepers narrowed his eye and started charging his blaster. “You better tell us first, or the only thing around here spilling will be you!”

“I- what? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know- like your- it’s not threatening if I have to explain it!”

 

Hater had by then reached his breaking point, and he let out a scream of rage, lightning crackling all around him as he filled the air with green electricity and began to loudly whine. “UGH EVERYONE JUST SHUT UP ALREADY! YOU’RE DRIVING ME INSANE!”

“Mmpfmnph,” said Wander, which roughly translated to “Okay!”

Hater pointed at Sylvia overdramatically. “YOU! What are you doing in my desert?!”

“Your desert?!”

The Villain crossed his arms and lifted up his hand, miming the action of checking his fingernails despite having none and also the fact that he was wearing gloves. “Uh, yeah, I’m here, sooo it’s mine,” he lifted up a flag. “I even brought this with me, soooo why don’t you make like a pair of dirty space hobos and GET OUT OF MY DESERT!”

Wander slipped away from Sylvia surprisingly easily, as if he could have done that the entire time. “Now now, I’m sure we can settle this like the friends we are. Hater! D’you, by any chance, happen to have any Orbal juice on you?”

“Ew, no, gross. Why would I need some sticky bubble water when I have my sweet ship? Stupid.”

 

Sylvia looked behind Hater to the rising sun, and in it she saw the silhouette of the Skull Ship, lying on a sand dune and waiting to take off again. “Oh, yep, there it is, huh, any chance we could-”

“No,” Peepers deadpanned.

Hater smirked at them evilly, and took up a falsely sympathetic tone. “Oh no, looks like you two will just be stuck here. That’s so sad~!” He held up the flag triumphantly. “I guess it’s time to conquer this planet and get out of here, I HATE sand.”

 

Meanwhile, on the Skullship, the Watchdogs in the control room could swear they were either going to die of boredom, or by being baked from the slowly rising sun. 

“Ugh,” groaned one of them. “Those guys better hurry up, I’m starting to get armpit sweat all over my uniform.”

“You said it, Jake.” Said a Watchdog, lying down on two chairs. “Shouldn’t we have air conditioning in here?”

“The automatic Air-Conditioner broke when we made that indoor ice rink, ” said a different Watchdog, then he laughed. “Peepers was so mad.”

Jake squinted and hummed in thought. “Shouldn’t we be able to control the air from this room? I mean, it’s the control room…”

The Watchdog lying on the chairs slowly rose up with the sound of a creaking door. “Hey, you’re right!” He sat up in one of the chairs and scooted it over to the main control panel, going over the buttons and reading a few of them out loud to himself.  
“Heat ray, meat ray, beat ray, shrink ray, cow beam, green beam… hey, what’s this one?”

Jake walked over to the other Watchdog, and squinted at the button himself. “... Plot device? Do you think that’s another way to say Air Conditioner?”

The Watchdog shrugged. “Only one way to find out.” He pressed the button.

Just as soon as Hater’s flag had been violently planted into the sandy ground, there was a loud rumble as the ship began gearing itself to take off. The travelers and the villains all watched as the giant skull shot into the air, and blasted its way towards an unknown destination at incredibly high speed. It was gone within ten seconds.  
There was silence.

“... Peepers.”

“... Yes, sir?”

 

“Did the Watchdogs just desert us?”

“... Yes, that seems to be the case, sir.”

There was then a pause, which was soon interrupted by Wander’s poorly stifled laugh. Hater’s head swiveled around with a crick and he glared with total and complete rage at the giggling nomad.

“What’s. So. Funny.”

Wander took a couple of seconds to get a hold of himself. “You…” he giggled again. “You… said desert.”

Sylvia and Peepers both facepalmed at the same time, and Hater took a deep breath, and started incomprehensibly yelling as loud as he could.

Sylvia stared straight forward in resignation.  
“This... is going to be a long day.”

…

After five whole minutes of argument and Wander trying to calm everyone down, it was finally decided that they would temporarily work together (mainly because Wander’s hat held all the water and food). 

“Ugh,” Hater whined. “Why should we walk? That’s dumb and it’ll just kill us faster.”

Sylvia grit her teeth and glared at who she was currently considering to be a giant man-baby. “Because if we walk, we might find something useful, like an old gas station or some shade. Now would you just shut your trap-”

 

Wander reached up and put a finger to Syvia’s lips. “Sylvia, Sylvia, Sylvia, that’s no way to speak to a friend!”

Sylvia settled for slouching while grumbling angrily to herself. Wander smiled at her sympathetically, and then switched to a very optimistic expression in a heartbeat.  
“If we keep on moving forward, I’m sure we’ll find somewhere better to be.”  
He then went ahead and hopped up into Sylvia’s saddle, ready to go.  
Hater narrowed his eyes.

“Why doesn’t he have to walk, huh?! That isn’t fair, is it?!” Hater said, somewhat mockingly. Sylvia looked about ready to show Hater exactly how unfair she could be, but before that, Wander looked consideringly at the ground and slid off of Sylvia’s back.

“You’re right! If some of us have to walk, all of should, otherwise it wouldn’t be fair.”

Sylvia looked at her friend with concern. “Wander, are you sure you can do this? Last time we were in a desert we barely even made it to that orble station.”

“Don’t worry Syl old girl, I’ll be fine! Besides, I could use the exercise!”

 

Sylvia frowned at the same time Hater smirked and Peepers uncaringly rolled his eye. Though she severely doubted the truthfulness of that statement, she decided not to press the issue. After all, once Wander decided to do something, it was difficult if not impossible to convince him to do otherwise. 

And with that conversation over, the temporary allies set out into the desert, with the rising sun only just beginning to heat up the world around them into an inevitably unbearably hot climate. As deserts tend to cool down to freezing temperatures at night time, there was nothing that could have prepared them for how hot the planet was going to end up being… and there was nothing that could have prepared Sylvia’s bare feet for how hot the sand was going to get. Zbornak feet happened to be made of incredibly tough stuff, and were incredibly durable against most textures that could otherwise be harmful. However, there’s something about burning sand that really does a number on anyone’s toes, no matter what they’re made of. The heat sinks into your skin like a thousand hot little knives, and sends waves of unbearable warmth up your body like the deliverer of the sun’s personal vendetta against you.  
To say the least, it was uncomfortable.  
But Sylvia wouldn’t show it. She just grit her teeth and bore it, because even if the hat could end up supplying her something she could use as shoes (which she doubted), the Zbornak was completely unwilling to show any amount of weakness to her enemies.   
She’d just have to live with the burns later, and explain to Wander what had happened when this was all over.

Hater and Peepers, unbeknownst to Sylvia at that moment, were way too absorbed in what they were doing to pay any attention to the two travelers anyway. They walked behind the two, and whispered to each other harshly.

 

“Are we seriously just going to follow them everywhere they go?!” Hater whisper-yelled. “Peepers, this is humiliating.”

“We just need to wait until the Watchdogs return the ship, and then we can capture them while they’re weak from the heat of the desert. It’s a flawless plan, sir, nothing will be able to get in our way this time!”

“But my feet huuurt.”

The Commander huffed. “We’ll just have to deal with the… discomfort until we can get out of here. The Watchdogs may be stupid, but they’ll figure out how to get back here eventually… just keep it together for now, sir.”

 

Hater grunted in a way that conveyed his frustration, indignation, and reservation somehow all at the same time, as well as possibly some other ‘tions. Then, the two villains looked forward, and tried to not think about how hot it was beginning to get.

As for Wander, though he started the journey off with positive vibes (and still conveyed as much of them as he could in his facial expression and movement), he was beginning to get just as uncomfortable as everyone else, if not slightly more. See, when you have fur, you tend to not do very well in hotter climates. At least, not for an extended period of time. There is a reason why creatures that live in cold climates grow thicker fur, and why ones acclimated to hot climates grow thin fur, if any at all. To sum it up, if you have pretty thick fur and you’re in a desert, you’re going to shed. Alot.   
Needless to say, the sand was gaining a slightly orange tint as they all walked along, covered as it was beginning to be with little orange hairs.

As was becoming obvious, none of these people belonged in a desert, and they were all beginning to realize that.  
After about a full 30 minutes without talking, the sun rising every higher all the while, Hater groaned and slowed to a stop.

“I’m so tired, my feet feel like they’re made of brick. PEEPERS, DO SOMETHING.”

Peepers looked at a loss of what to do for a moment, before walking up to Hater and patting his arm consolingly. “Uh, there there, sir.”

 

Hater glared at him. “THAT ISN’T HELPING!”

Wander opened his arms and took a step towards Hater. “Maybe a hug would-”

“NEVER! Don’t you dare touch me with your gross NOODLE ARMS!”

Wander put his arms down but kept the same smile on his face. “Okay! Well, let’s see, what could we do to help turn this situation back around… Sylvia-”

“No.”

Wander gave her puppydog eyes. “Pleeeeaaase, Syl? If you carry Hater for just a liittle while-”

“What?! Ew!” Hater crossed his arms and looked disgustedly at Wander and Sylvia. “There’s no way I’m going to touch either of you! You’re gross and you smell bad!”

“You don’t exactly smell like perfume yourself, pal.”

 

“Am I seriously being lectured to about hygiene by a glorified horse?!”

Sylvia huffed angrily out of her nostrils, somewhat ironically like a horse. “I’ll show you horse.” she said, getting ready to kick Hater in the ribs.

Peepers lifted his blaster slightly, but Wander jumped between Hater and Sylvia before anything else could happen. 

“Whoa, whoa! Come on, guys, violence isn’t going to solve our problems!”

 

Sylvia frowned, mentally disproving that statement to herself. Wander continued talking without acknowledging what he knew his friend was doing.

“We’ve been walking long enough that one of us has gotten tired, and so we either need to help that person, or stop and sit in the sun and on the hot sand for a little while. I’m sure you two can get along for just a little bit, so we can continue walking, right?” He looked at Sylvia hopefully.  
Sylvia still looked incredibly unimpressed.

“...I’ll buy you as much jellyfish pie as you want after this is over.”

“... As much as I want?”

Wander visibly shuddered. “Yes, what d’you say?”

Sylvia considered for a long moment. “... Fine.”

Wander squealed happily and hugged his best friend, Sylvia hugging back with some resignation written in her expression.

“Ugh, what?! I’m still not gonna touch your gross saddle, I don’t know how many butts have been in that thing!”

Sylvia glared at him. “Well, it’s either that, or you walk, bonehead.”

Hater glared at Sylvia, then at Wander, then at the sun. He tapped a gloved finger on his elbow for exactly 10 seconds, before he finally groaned angrily and stomped over to Sylvia, trying to look as uncaring as physically possible, and failing horribly. Wander smiled as they all began walking again, and Peepers, who had been silent throughout this entire exchange, was not surprised at all. He just rolled his eye again and marched forward with everyone else.

“We’ll get to a fine resting stop in no time,” said Wander, the pep temporarily back in his step. “Nothing’ll get in our way that we can’t handle!”

…

Miles off from the group, sand began shifting about ten feet around in a circle, making the area look almost like a sand hot-tub. What seemed like hundreds of of small creatures began digging their way out of the sand, and pulling onto the surface, somehow being able to gain traction on the shifting particles. The creatures all had six legs and no visible eyes, and from biggest to smallest were about 2-4 feet long. They were sand spider-crabs, and they had just woken up from a long sleep. The biggest crab, one about 4 ½ feet long, let out a screeching cry that silenced all the other crabs. The wind blowing towards the group sent a lone orange hair directly towards the leader, who caught it in its mouth and began growling. It screeched once more, and began skittering in the direction of the breeze came from, kicking up sand. The rest of the crabs followed.  
The spider crabs had been asleep for a very long time… and they were very hungry.

...

“D’you think it’s possible for shoes to melt into the ground?”

After an incredibly long stretch of silence, this was the first thing Wander said to defuse the tension. By this point in the journey, all four of the group members were showing effects of the heat. Peepers and Sylvia were sweating horribly, Hater was nearly doubled over with exhaustion, and Wander was possibly sweating, though with fur it was pretty difficult to tell. For the most part, he was shedding. Alot.

“Wander,” Sylvia grunted, looking incredibly exhausted. “It’s probably best that we just focus on ourselves and not melting at the moment, okay?”

Wander grimaced to himself, looking at his sand-covered shoes. At that moment, it felt like his socks were made of sandpaper. “Oh, that’s alright, I was just asking because… uh, nevermind.”

Peepers looked annoyed and incredibly tired, his eye in a half-lidded scowl. “Do you think that hat of yours has anything but water in it? It gives you things, right?”

 

“Maybe it can give us some shade.” Hater grumbled, holding his hand to shield his eyes from the sun.

Wander shrugged and took his hat off of his head, squinting when that caused the sun to get in his eyes. “Well, let’s give it a shot!” He rummaged around in the hat, and his eyes lit up when his hand hit something that wasn’t a bottle of water. He lifted his hand out of the hat, and in it was… a buzzing electric hair-trimmer.   
Wander’s eyes widened and everyone else looked confused. 

Sylvia raised an eyebrow. “Buddy, what’s-”

 

Wander reeled his arm back and threw the shaving implement as far away from himself as physically possible. Is disappeared into the distance, glinting like a star.

Everyone looked even more confused. Wander cleared his throat. “Let’s try that again!”  
He reached into the hat and pulled out a parasol. “Oh!”

 

“What?!” Hater yelled. “We’re in the desert! Why would we need an umbrella?!”

Wander walked over to Sylvia and handed her the parasol, which she opened, shading about half of her body.

“... Oh. Wait, why does she get it?”

“Because she’s been walking and carrying you, Hater.” Said Wander, patiently. Hater crossed his arms and muttered under his breath, but seemed to accept that he wasn’t going to get his own parasol.

Wander started digging in the hat some more, and pulled out sunscreen. He smiled and handed it to Peepers.

“...Thanks. Sunglasses would’ve been nice, though.”

“Or sunglass.” Sylvia smirked when Peepers glared at her.

“Do I get anything?” Hater looked at the hat like it had personally offended him.

Wander dug around in his hat one more time and came back up with nothing. “Hm, maybe the hat’s just busy-”

“Gimme that!” Hater reached down and grabbed the hat from Wander’s hands, and began digging around in it, trying to find something. “Come on, gimme something cool!”  
He lifted the hat up over his head to look inside of it, and a large amount of water poured from it, soaking Hater’s entire upper half. Sylvia started laughing.

“Ha! Cool enough for ya?” Her voice shook with laughter, and Hater glared at her with extreme rage, his pupils gaining a little red rim around them. He forcefully shoved the hat back at Wander, who happily placed it back onto his head.

Sylvia’s laughter started dying down. “Are you going to try and get anything for yourself?”

Wander straightened the hat’s brim. “I’ll be fine, all I need is my hat!”

Sylvia shrugged, and with that, they set off again, Hater secretly fantasizing about what it’d be like to finally capture and destroy his two enemies.

Later on, Sylvia was beginning to really regret not asking the hat for some shoes. Strangely enough, it seemed to understand her thought process when it gave her the parasol… or maybe it just really hated her. Sylvia huffed. Well, she hated it too. She briefly looked down at her feet, seriously dreading the moment she’d have to look at all the burns she was collecting. Her feet were pretty much constantly burning at that point, but she wasn’t ready to back down just yet. She nonchalantly looked over at Wander, who seemed to be almost unaffected by the heat, a smile still on his face, and walking at a steady speed. How was he doing it?  
She sighed, and looked forward again. After a couple of seconds she spotted something in the distance. A figure? She squinted, and past all the heatwaves she could make out the vague outline of something tall in the distance.

 

“Hey, what’s that up there?”

 

Everyone looked up and forward for what Sylvia was gesturing to. Sure enough, far ahead of them was the silhouette of a structure of some kind. 

“OH MY GROP FINALLY SOMETHING.” Hater ran ahead towards the structure as fast as he currently could, Peepers chasing after him at a significantly slower speed. Sylvia picked up Wander with her tail and chased after them as well, and in just under five minutes, they had all reached the structure.

Sticking out of the sand was a 20 foot tall conical stone sculpture, with small pictures inscribed all over it. It stood up perfectly straight, tipped with a fine point, and its base was covered in sand. Peepers immediately walked over to the sculpture, both in curiosity about the hieroglyphics, and his hope to have something to shield his eye from the sandy winds.  
He stared at the pictures for a few moments, eye roaming down to the base of the sculpture until the sand obscured the rest.  
“Huh, that’s strange…”

 

Sylvia turned to look away from where she’d just set down her friend. “What’s strange?”

“This desert might be less uninhabited than we thought… or, well, it used to be, at least.” He pointed towards a few pictures depicting a bunch of small, triangular aliens, running away from a giant, many-legged, snarling creature. “It looks like they were wiped out by whatever this is. This must have happened thousands of years ago!”

“Yeah yeah, history garbage, blah blah,” Hater remarked from the shade cast by the structure. “Who cares what happened a thousand years ago, that was like… a thousand years ago.”

 

“Yeah that’s… yes, sir, that’s pretty much what I just said.”

“Whatever.” He leaned his back against the stone. “Now that we’ve found a stupid rock to sit around, I’m never gonna walk anywhere ever again.”

 

“Sir, we’ll eventually need to walk to the sh-”

“Ever again, Peepers.”

“... Alright.”  
Peepers sat down in front of the sculpture and started looking closer at the inscriptions. Might as well try to learn something, they might be there for awhile.

“Agh, finally,” Sylvia sat down in the shade, about five feet away from Hater. “I’m bushed. Once the sun goes down, I’ll be ready to sleep for days!”

Wander gladly walked over and sat down next to his friend. “I sure hope it doesn’t take days for Hater’s ship to get here, but I’m sure we’ll be out of here in no time, right, Syl?”

“...”

“...Syl?”

A loud snore came from the Zbornak, and Wander sighed and smiled. Apparently, sleeping couldn’t wait. Resting did seem like the correct course of action right about then, so Wander took the hint, lied down next to Sylvia, and tried not to think about how much slack he’d have to pick up when he was able to continue doing his daily helping routine.

…

It was hours later, and the sun had just dipped down below the horizon. Peepers was awoken by a skittering noise in the distance. He blinked his eye open, and sat up straight from where he’d fallen asleep, leaning his head against the tall stone structure. He righted his helmet and began blinking around drowsily, trying to find the source of the noise.   
The structure and the group surrounding it were encircled by dunes of sand that caused what seemed like a large dip in the sand, just over 20 feet in diameter. The noises of shifting sand and occasional skittering seemed to be coming from behind the dunes surrounding them, and despite having an eye take up most of his body, Peepers still didn’t have night vision.  
After some hesitation, he stood up and walked away from the rest of the group, closer to one of the dunes near him. Then, he stood silently, waiting to catch a glimpse of what was lurking just behind the hill of sand.  
Moments passed, and then a slight growling noise was heard, and two long, dark legs reached over the top of the dune. Peepers barely had time to react before a 3 foot long spider-crab was launching itself towards his face at alarming speeds. He stepped back, and his reflexes were just good enough for him to have time to pull out his blaster and shoot the spider-crab in the face, instantly stunning it. After that, spider-crabs began pouring from behind the dunes in large numbers. Peeper’s pupil dilated to the size of a pin-prick and he ran towards the rest of the group. 

“SIR!”

Hater startled awake, and began looking around blearily. “Huh, Wazzat? Peepers, can’t you see I was sleep- AH WHAT THE FLARP IS THAT?!”

Peepers jumped onto Hater in fear, grabbing his shoulder and shooting his blaster in every direction. Sylvia ended up waking up from the noise, and she stood up quickly, dislodging a sleeping Wander from her side. She punched a spider-crab directly in the mouth and then knocked three out just by spinning her tail around. The crabs hissed and spat at her, then started trying to corner the group, using their numbers to their advantage.

Hater, Sylvia, and Peepers all stood in fighting stances, getting ready to do whatever they could to fight off the spider-crabs. Just as they were all pushed to the stone structure, getting tenser and tenser every second, the spider-crabs began to disperse. In just a few moments, it was like they were never there in the first place. The three all let their guard down, confused.

“What?” Peepers looked around frantically, adrenaline still pumping through his tiny body. “Why would they just leave like that? They could’ve even had a chance…”

Sylvia, just as confused, began to feel like she was forgetting something. She looked around, and all she saw was a lone, battered hat.

“Oh grop… WANDER!”

…

When Wander woke up, he immediately noticed that something was very wrong. First of all, instead of lying with his back against his trusted pal, he was lying flat on what seemed like solid stone. Secondly, he couldn’t move any of his limbs.  
Wander grimaced. He knew it was broad daylight without even having to open his eyes, partly because they light was searing through his eyelids, but mostly because it was so hot he felt like he was going to melt into the ground. Very slowly, he cracked open his eyes.   
Sure enough, the sun was high in the sky, and after moving his head to the side (with more effort than that action would usually merit), Wander judged accurately that he was indeed lying on a slab of stone. The rock was made incredibly hot by the sun, and it almost felt like he was lying on a frying pan. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something move. The thing moved closer, and Wander noticed that it appeared to be a giant six-legged creature, with teeth big enough to bite him in half.

Overall, this was one of the nomad’s less joyful wake-up calls, but honestly, he’d still had worse ones.

“Uh, well hello there friend, d’you have any idea why-”

The spider-crab hissed at him and lifted a leg to poke him in the arm a couple of times. Wander winced, only just then noticing the different kind of burning that was coming from that specific arm. His head flopped to the side as he turned it to try and assess the damage. The arm appeared to have been bitten. Sudden understanding crashed down upon him like a wave; that bite must be why he couldn’t move. These spider-crabs must have kidnapped him during the night, and left him on this rock to… what, to cook alive? That seemed to be the case.  
Wander watched the spider-crab walk away, apparently satisfied with the fact that he was completely paralyzed.  
Wander felt a large amount of dread settle in his stomach. The rays of the sun prickled all over his skin and reminded him exactly what heat exhaustion could do to a person. He hoped Sylvia could find him soon…

…

Sylvia had absolutely no idea where her friend could have been taken to.  
She paced around the stone structure nervously, worry clawing at her chest and pulling at her heart-strings. Who knows where those horrible things could have taken him he could be dead by now for all she knew! She spinned around suddenly to glare at Peepers and Hater, the former looking at inscriptions on the stone, and the latter just trying to act like he knew what he was doing.

“Did you find anything that can help yet?! I swear if you’re slackin’ off I’ll-”

 

“Hang on already!” Peepers held up a hand irritably. “This thing could hold clues to where those spider-crabs take their victims, but I can’t read it if I can’t concentrate!”

Sylvia Glared at Peepers but stayed reluctantly silent, desperate to find any way to rescue her best friend. Moments passed, and she grew more frantic by the second, and began to pace again. After about two minutes, Peepers stood up triumphantly. “I think I found something!”

 

Sylvia was by his side in a second, almost shoving Hater out of the way to get closer to the stone.  
“Hey!” Yelled Hater, going completely ignored.

Peepers pointed to a certain set of hieroglyphics, which were previously obscured by the sand. “Do you see that drawing there?” He pointed to a depiction of what seemed to be a building. “That’s an ancient temple. The inscriptions seem to indicate that that temple is where the sand-crabs tend to collect, if I’m reading this right, it’s also where they take their victims!”

“What do they do to them there?” Hater asked, morbidly curious. “Do they rip ‘em apart?”  
If looks could kill, Hater would have been completely obliterated by Sylvia’s eyes just then.

Peepers’ hand moved towards a small drawing of a triangle-person lying flat on a square, with little lines representing the sun beating down on them from above. “It seems that they’re made to lie down on a rock somehow, and then they’re baked alive by the sun. Which is, uh, lucky for us I guess, since that means we still have a chance at saving Wander.”  
Peepers rolled his eye and muttered to himself: “I can’t believe I just said that…”

Sylvia decided to ignore that comment, absorbed as she was in her newfound hope for the rescue of her friend. “Fantastic, okay, but how do we find the place?”

Peepers looked uncomfortable. “Uh, see, that’s the problem. The inscriptions seem to have shown directions to the temple at some point, but…”

“But? But what?”

Peeper gestured to a large area of the stone, scratched up and sanded beyond any legibility.  
“The elements got to it first…”

Sylvia yelled and growled her frustration, turning around and kicking up the sand. “How are we supposed to find him now?!”

As the stressed out Zbornak continued her meltdown, Hater looked down to the hat still left in the sand. Curious despite himself, he walked over and picked it up, and as soon as he did, an electric hair-clipper fell onto the ground, exactly the same as the one from the day previous. Hater leaned down to pick it up, and from his closer position to the sand, he spotted a small, single strand of orange fur. Hater picked it up confusedly, and then noticed another, and another, and another, and…  
Laid out in the sand, almost impossible to see if you weren’t looking for it, was a trail of shed orange fur leading off in a far-away direction. Hater looked at the trail for about 5 entire seconds, then smirked condescendingly.

“Hey guys~ look what I, Lord Hater, Master Detective, have found.” He gestured to the sand triumphantly.

Sylvia and Peepers stared at him, unimpressed.  
“Good job, sir, you found some sand.”

Hater glared at them and stomped a foot, but softly, so he didn’t upset the trail. “No! Look closer, ugh, do I have to do everything?!”

Sylvia and Peepers moved closer to the sand, and Sylvia gasped. “That’s it! That’ll lead us right to them! I never thought I’d say this but thank flarp Wander sheds so much!”

Peepers nodded. “Right, I’ll keep an eye on the trail, and you two watch for anymore spider-crabs. If we hussle, we’ll be there before it’s too late.”

“We better be,” Sylvia growled, and then spoke quietly to herself. “Just a little bit longer, buddy, hang on…”

…

Wander was beginning to think that even if he hadn’t been immobilized almost entirely, the stifling heat from the sun would have made it impossible to move anyway. It had only been about an hour since he had first woken up, and he already felt almost half-dead by that point. He’d tried yelling for a little bit to try and gain any measure of attention, and then quietly singing to himself for entertainment, but it hadn’t taken long for his mouth to dry up too much to talk. Now he was just lying there, hoping that someone would find him before he inevitably passed out and died.  
Every minute his brain got a little bit hazier, and he felt even dizzier. Had the sky always been filled with all those colorful moving dots? They were pretty…

After a lot of incredibly brisk walking, Sylvia, Peepers, and Hater all arrived to the temple. It didn’t take them long to spot Wander, nor was it a while before they saw the group of spider-crabs 10 feet away from him, either.  
The longer Wander laid there without moving, the more worried and frantic Sylvia got.

“Is he dead?” Hater loudly whispered.

“No,” said Peepers in an actual whisper, squinting down at Wander’s still form. “I think he’s just immobilized… but who knows how long we have before the heat does him in. We have to act fast.”

“Yeah, no kidding!” Said Syliva, harshly. “If you don’t come up with a plan in the next ten seconds, I’m running down there, flarp the consequences.” 

“Okay, okay!” Peepers turned around and began drawing in the sand. “Alright, so here’s the plan…”

…

Wander was having more and more trouble keeping his eyes open. Every breath was labored, and it felt like his chest was melting. This was it, he figured. Well, it’d be a long life. He only wished he’d been able to tell Sylvia goodbye before…

A zapping noise briefly distracted Wander from his thoughts, and spider-crab screeched as it flew over his head, trailing smoke behind it. Huh, that’s funny, Wander didn’t know spider-crabs could fly.   
With the last bit of effort he could muster, he turned his head to the other side of his body, where he could see where the crabs had been gathering. His vision was filling with colorful spots, but behind the distracting dots Wander noticed two figures, one smaller one on top of a big one, racing across the sandy floor and leading around a bunch of spider-crabs in a chase. Before he could process this peculiar sight, the nomad’s entire line of sight was filled with a dark silhouette. His eyes trailed up to find the figure’s face.  
‘Oh, hey there, Hater,’ he wanted to say, but instead he ended up just making a faint rasping noise.  
Hater, as that was indeed who it was, winced a little, despite himself. Then, to save face, he rolled his eyes and tried to look as disinterested as possible as he picked up the half-dead looking nomad.  
Hater honestly couldn’t figure out a way to hold him that didn’t make him look lame, so he settled for just putting him under one arm and running to position.

Meanwhile, Sylvia ran as fast as she could towards the temple door, with Peepers on her back, keeping the attention of the crabs on them with his blaster. Sylvia barrelled into the temple at incredible speeds, and watched all the spider-crabs trip over each other to make their way through the doors. Once they were all inside, she took a few steps back and braced herself. 

“Hang on, peepsqueak.”

“Believe me, I am.”

Sylvia ran forwards as a fast as she could and took a running leap over every single one of the crabs, getting out of the temple before any of them even processed what just happened. Just as soon as she was out, Hater slammed the temple doors shut, trapping every spider-crab inside. Their futile scratching started seconds later, and Sylvia sat down on the temple steps, relieved and exhausted. Then, she looked up, sudden urgency in her expression.

“Did you get him?”

“Yeah, yeah, he’s alive and whatever.” Hater held Wander out by the neck, and Sylvia glared at Hater as she carefully grabbed her friend and held him like one would with a small child or a bunny rabbit. She pressed her head against his chest to check his heartbeat, and grimaced when she heard how slow it was, and how feverishly warm the skin under his fur had gotten. She gently placed his hat back on his head, and looked back up at Hater and Peepers with worry still in her expression.  
“Your ship better get here fast, I don’t know how much longer he’s gonna last like this.”

“What makes you think we’ll let you on one it does come?” Hater said, though somewhat halfheartedly. 

“Let me rephrase, if he dies, you die.”

If the two villains had any doubt about what Sylvia said, it immediately disappeared once they saw the cold intensity in her eyes. Peepers cleared his throat.  
“Um, we understand, but really there’s no possible way we could make the ship get here any faster, it could be thousands of light years away for all we kno-”

Suddenly and unexpectedly, the Skullship pulled to a stop in midair 10 yards above the ground, as could be seen directly over Peeper’s shoulder. The intercom turned on and a Watchdog’s voice issued from the speakers.  
“We’re here Lord Hater and Commander Peepers sir! So sorry it took too long, we had to stop on the way back to go on an epic quest with a bunch of space monks and-”

“SHUT YOUR TRAPS AND LET US ON!” Peepers started running towards the ship, arms up and waving frantically. Hater wasn’t far behind, and Sylvia ran as fast as she could while avoiding shaking Wander too much. The Watchdogs, thoroughly startled, lowered the ship’s tongue and let them on as quick as they possibly could.  
Sylvia raced on-board and immediately asked the nearest Watchdog to take her to the medbay. The Watchdog, taking in the situation surprisingly quickly, gestured for her to follow him as he raced down the hallways to the medical bay as fast as he could. A few other Watchdogs even tagged along, pretending to be escorts but actually being secretly worried about Wander and wanting him to be alright.

As soon as they reached the medical ward, the first Watchdog doctor to spot them had Wander placed in a bet with three fans pointed at him and an IV drip put in his arm. Then his arm was bandaged, and after that all they could do was wait.

While they waited for Wander to recover, Sylvia was allowed to stay in the hospital ward and was even offered a bed to sleep on in meantime. She declined and instead decided to stay awake and watch her friend while he cooled down and rested.

Wander woke up to a much softer light than the sun, and was immensely grateful for that. His limbs were incredibly stiff and achey, his mouth and throat were dry as sandpaper, and his arm stung horribly, but he wasn’t dying from the heat anymore, and that was an absolute blessing. As soon as he was sitting up, Sylvia gave him a big hug and told him how relieved she was that he was okay. 

“You were really close, buddy. Even Hater was worried, he came in to check on you and then pretended he just got lost on his way to the food court, it was pretty great.”

Wander grinned brighter than the sun. “I knew he cared! And if I remember right, he and Peepers helped save me… I should thank them with a gift basket, do you think they’d prefer a fruit or cookie bouquet? Maybe some assorted chocolates?”

Sylvia pulled his hat down a little over his eyes. “I think right now they’d just be thankful for us getting off their ship. Do you feel okay enough to go anywhere?”

Wander considered for barely a moment before opening his mouth, but was interrupted by the sudden entrance of the doctor who had been treating him.

“Don’t either of you know to ask the professional first before making any decisions?”

Sylvia rolled her eyes, but still respected the doctor for helping her save Wander. “Yeah yeah, okay. Think we’re ready to go, doc?”

The doctor looked at Wander. “You should be fine as long as you don’t push yourself too far for the next few days, and you must drink lots of water every day. Following those guidelines, I believe you’re free to go.”

Wander slid out from the bedsheets and walked over to the doctor to shake his hand, stumbling only a little bit. “Thank you so much for all your help! I can’t thank you enough for all you’ve done, really, I-”

“Alright, okay, that’s enough.” The doctor took his hand back and shook it out a bit, and then gestured to the door. “You’re free to go.”

As he and Sylvia walked out of the door, Wander waved goodbye and yelled one last thank you to the doctor. He rolled his eye, but if he had a mouth, he would be smiling with it.

They were only halfway down the hall when Wander looked down and noticed the bandages wrapped around Sylvia’s feet.

“Uh, Syl, why are your feet all wrapped up?”

Sylvia’s eyes widened. “Uh, well, funny story…”

Every watchdog in a in a 50 foot radius could hear Wander’s lecture about foot safety, and most of them blinked happily, glad that he was okay.

…

After Wander and Sylvia had left the ship with a fresh bottle of Orble juice (provided by the Watchdogs), Hater finally felt safe enough to step out of his room again. As he opened the door to leave, he noticed a small basket full of chocolates right in front of him, in the middle of the hallway. He stared at it for a moment, then walked over to it and picked up the note attached to the rim.

Thank you for all your help, Hater! XOXO, Wander.

Drawn on the note with crayon was a little picture of Wander, Hater, Peepers, and Sylvia all hugging with smiles on their faces. Hater gagged a little bit and threw the letter back into the basket of chocolates.

“Stupid Wander and his friendship. Why’d he have to survive?!”

Hater stared down at the basket of chocolates for a moment, then picked them up and went back in his room. The chocolates were delicious.

 

The End.


End file.
